Learn from what hit the mark in 2015, and realize your own design dreams in 2016!

Of all designers, industrial designers are perhaps best suited to becoming successful entrepreneurs by pursuing their passions. You know why? Because we make things, and people use things in their hobbies and life pursuits. That means that, unlike those animals in architecture, fashion or graphic, we can create things directly related to our own hobbies, whatever they may be.

What you need to do is look at your own hobby or interest, and find an object-based shortcoming within that hobby. Is there some item, some system that if it existed, would increase your enjoyment of that activity? If there is, then there's a hole in the market--and you can use your design brains to fill it. For example, maybe you're into:

Games

People that are passionate about games are willing to spend money on those games. Thus the folks behind the Wyrmwood Magnetic Dice Tower System struck crowdfunding gold with their beautiful wooden creations, seeking just ten grand on Kickstarter but coming up with $246,719.

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Wine

As it turns out, the design of your average high-density wine storage system kind of sucks. Also, people who need high-density wine storage tend to be billionaires. So when Jim Cash designed a better system and started up Revel Custom Wine Cellars, he lived up to his last name.

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Food

Who doesn't like butter? If you don't, please stand up and leave the room right now. I mean it, get out.

Okay, those of you still here and reading this: We all love butter, but the dispensing systems to date have been lacking. That's why the folks at Y Line Product Design came up with the Chapstick-like Butter Boss and got it successfully Kickstarted.

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Cold Drinks

Ice has been around for a while, so who'd think you could hit paydirt by designing an ice dispenser? The folks behind the Opal Nugget Ice Maker, that's who. They shrewdly launched their campaign amidst the blazing heat of summer, and it paid off--they raised $516,742 on just the first day, and by campaign's end they'd landed $2.7 million.

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Hot Drinks

Brewing tea is even older than making ice. No room for improvement there, is there? A team of ID students at Western Washington University figured there was. And when they put their flippable Imbue design on Kickstarter, their measly $20,000 target was funded--18 times over.

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Electronics

Most folks would prefer the convenience of being able to plug a USB device right into the wall, but few have homes with such fancy outlets. Thus Jeremy Smith invented one that a layperson could retrofit. His SnapPower Charger needed $35,000 to get off the ground--and received $839,301.

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Traveling

No one had ever designed a jacket specifically to minimize the hassles of modern air travel. But Baubax did, and their super-functional Travel Jacket became the most-crowdfunded piece of clothing ever, with $9-million-plus in pledges!

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Learning How to Create a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign

With crowdfunded entrepreneurship, design is often not the hardest part. It's worth looking at the other factors that go into bringing your dream to fruition.

Get the Intangibles Right

In Mininch Does it Again with Second Crowdfunding Smash, we looked at the often-overlooked, all-important non-design factors that go into a successful crowdfunding campaign. In addition to executing their design, the folks at Mininch focused on factors like video production value, global appeal, lifestyle appeal, a low buy-in price and a multifaceted (i.e. more than just designers) execution team to put them over the top. And by "over the top" I mean they were seeking just $7,000 but netted over a quarter of a million dollars.

Figuring Out What You're Good At—and Doing it Again and Again

The Crucial Elements of Any Crowdfunding Campaign

For the most comprehensive series of tips on how to create a successful campaign, look no further than our interview with Alex Daly, a/k/a/ The Crowdsourceress, whose consulting operation has a 100% success rate.

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Non-Crowdfunded Design Entrepreneur Stories

Of course, not all of you are cut out to be Kickstarted or IndieGogo'd. I don't mean that as a dig, I mean that some of you are involved with longer-form projects and careers that a snappy pitch video isn't going to help with.

One such entrepreneur is California-based designer/builder Jory Brigham. Brigham appeared on something we never thought we'd see on TV, a furniture design/build "reality" competition program called Framework. (We hated the idea of the show, but then it grew on us.) Over the course of ten episodes, he won the thing! Lucky for us as we were in the midst of profiling him. He was kind enough to give us his story in Furniture Designer/Builder Jory Brigham's Unusual Path to Success—and I've gotta tell you, this is one of the craziest, most unpredictable career arcs I'd ever heard.

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Michael McDaniel is another designer with a crazy story, this one about a mammoth project. McDaniel quit frogdesign to pursue his dream of creating the perfect disaster relief shelter, and in this video on How a Design Entrepreneur Got His Dream Off of the Ground, McDaniel runs down how he overcame the numerous obstacles thrown in his path.

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Okay, so now you've seen, heard and read these numerous tales of successful design entrepreneurship. As you move into the New Year, think about what you'vegot to offer—and hopefully you'll be on this list in 2016 or beyond!

2 Comments

Nice article, but sad to see some of these "products" werent created by Industrial designers. And actual graduates of Industrial Design like myself who do Have successful 6 figure Kickstarter campaigns get ZERO recognition from Core77... even after a number of emails asking for some love, PR or even advice I received no response.

Really? So because they weren't created by "trained" industrial designers you are upset? Just because you have a successful 6 figure Kickstarter and a degree doesn't make you a good designer. It just makes you a profitable one. Which is great! But not necessarily...good. ;)

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